Michael White was voted Britain’s least boring music critic by listeners of Classic FM. He has made documentaries about Menotti, Britten and Nielsen and once attempted to explain Wagner's Ring Cycle on TV in half an hour. He's the author of two books: Introducing Wagner (Icon) and Opera & Operetta (HarperCollins).

Daniela Lehner: a young voice to knock you sideways

It's bizarre how slowly London's concert life gets going again after seasonal weeks of nothing but carol concerts and Raymond Gubbay. I guess it takes time for these things to work their way out of the system. Like gastric poisoning.

But I've now, at last, notched up my first concert of 2010: a song recital at the Wigmore by a young Austrian mezzo I've been chasing for a long time (professionally speaking) called Daniela Lehner. And it's wonderful to see what a star she's turning into, even though the voice isn't complete yet and still needs some sensitively expert guidance if there's anyone out there prepared to step forward. Your time will not be wasted.

I first came across her through the Austrian Cultural Forum (at Rutland Gate, Knightsbridge) where she was one of the first singers in the New Artists Series that runs there as a London platform for the best talent emerging from Vienna. I'm involved with putting that series together (www.acflondon.org, all the concerts are free and, though I say so myself, pretty impressive: you even get a free drink), and she was fiercely recommended by Christopher Raeburn, the late doyen of Decca record producers who handled everyone from Sutherland to Bartoli and accordingly knew a great female voice when he heard one.

When I heard her for the first time I remember being knocked sideways by what she could do. But the problem was that she did it unevenly. When the voice opened out and she was comfortable, it had extraordinary distinction: full and rich and glorious. Pure class. But at other times, when she reduced the volume down or wasn't comfortable, the timbre became hard and white and lost its allure.

It was a real worry because the voice was self-evidently special and far too good to sideline for this one flaw. And I wasn't the only person to think so. As the years turned she picked up various supporters including the BBC who enrolled her on its Young Generation scheme. And her Wigmore recital the other day – accompanied by Roger Vignoles, who's another big believer in Ms Lehner – was a BBC live broadcast that gets repeated this Saturday, 9 Jan. So you can hear it for yourself.

I have to say the problem hasn't gone away: she started with a Mozart group that had that hard-edged whiteness and wasn't too attractive. But then, as the programme rolled on through sequences of Wolf, Zemlinsky, Guastavino and Ginastera, things settled, the voice opened out, and there was everything you could want: excitement, fire, attack – and above all the smooth, rich and substantial colouring of a potentially great voice, which she certainly knows to use to advantage.

She tells the story of a song as though her life depended on it. And given a text that unfolds in a strongly characterised manner, she's in her element – delivering the detail with relish and rising to whatever grand gestures the music and text demand.

Try listening on Saturday: 2pm, Radio 3. Bear with her through the Mozart. Bask in the rewards of the Zemlinsky and the Argentines. Then tell me this isn't one of the classiest vocal sounds you've encountered in a long while…